The Frank Emperors To The Death Of Henry Iv

(1024--1106.)



Konrad II. elected Emperor. --Movements against him. --Journey to

Italy. --Revolt of Ernest of Suabia. --Burgundy attached to the

Empire. --Siege of Milan. --Konrad's Death. --Henry III. succeeds.

--Temporary Peace. --Corruptions in the Church. --The "Truce of

God." --Henry III.'s Coronation in Rome. --Rival Popes. --New

Troubles in Germany. --Second Visit to Italy. --Ret rn and Death.

--Henry IV.'s Childhood. --His Capture. --Archbishops Hanno and

Adalbert. --Henry IV. begins to reign. --Revolt and Slaughter of

the Saxons. --Pope Gregory VII. --His Character and Policy. --Henry

IV. excommunicated. --Movement against him. --He goes to Italy.

--His Humiliation at Canossa. --War with Rudolf of Suabia. --Henry

IV. besieges Rome. --Death of Gregory VII. --Rebellions of Henry

IV.'s Sons. --His Capture, Abdication and Death. --The First

Crusade.





[Sidenote: 1024.]



On the 4th of September, 1024, the German nobles, clergy and people came

together on the banks of the Rhine, near Mayence, to elect a new

Emperor. There were fifty or sixty thousand persons in all, forming two

great camps: on the western bank of the river were the Lorrainese and

the Rhine-Franks, on the eastern bank the Saxons, Suabians, Bavarians

and German-Franks. There were two prominent candidates for the throne,

but neither of them belonged to the established reigning houses, the

members of which seemed to be so jealous of one another that they

mutually destroyed their own chances. The two who were brought forward

were cousins, both named Konrad, and both great-grandsons of Duke

Konrad, Otto the Great's son-in-law, who fell so gallantly in the great

battle with the Hungarians, in 955.



For five days the claims of the two were canvassed by the electors. The

elder Konrad had married Gisela, the widow of Duke Ernest of Suabia,

which gave him a somewhat higher place among the princes; and therefore

after the cousins had agreed that either would accept the other's

election as valid and final, the votes turned to his side. The people,

who were present merely as spectators (for they had now no longer any

part in the election), hailed the new monarch with shouts of joy, and he

was immediately crowned king of Germany in the Cathedral of Mayence.






Twelfth Century]



[Sidenote: 1024.]



Konrad--who was Konrad II. in the list of German Emperors--had no

subjects of his own to support him, like his Saxon predecessors: his

authority rested upon his own experience, ability and knowledge of

statesmanship. But his queen, Gisela, was a woman of unusual

intelligence and energy, and she faithfully assisted him in his duties.

He was a man of stately and commanding appearance, and seemed so well

fitted for his new dignity that when he made the usual journey through

Germany, neither Dukes nor people hesitated to give him their

allegiance. Even the nobles of Lorraine, who were dissatisfied with his

election, found it prudent to yield without serious opposition.



The death of Henry II., nevertheless, was the signal for three

threatening movements against the Empire. In Italy the Lombards rose,

and, in their hatred of what they now considered to be a foreign rule

(quite forgetting their own German origin), they razed to the ground the

Imperial palace at Pavia: in Burgundy, king Rudolf declared that he

would resist Konrad's claim to the sovereignty of the country, which,

being himself childless, he had promised to Henry II.; and in Poland,

Boleslaw, who now called himself king, declared that his former treaties

with Germany were no longer binding upon him. But Konrad II. was favored

by fortune. The Polish king died, and the power which he had built

up--for his kingdom, like that of the Goths, reached from the Baltic to

the Danube, from the Elbe to Central Russia--was again shattered by the

quarrels of his sons. In Burgundy, Duke Rudolf was without heirs, and

finally found himself compelled to recognize the German sovereign as his

successor. With Canute, who was then king of Denmark and England, Konrad

II. made a treaty of peace and friendship, restoring Schleswig to the

Danish crown, and re-adopting the river Eider as the boundary.



In the spring of 1026, Konrad went to Italy. Pavia shut her gates

against him, but those of Milan were opened, and the Lombard Bishops and

nobles came to offer him homage. He was crowned with the iron crown, and

during the course of the year, all the cities in Northern Italy--even

Pavia, which promised to rebuild the Imperial palace--acknowledged his

sway. In March, 1027, he went to Rome and was crowned Emperor by the

Pope, John XIX., one of the young Counts of Tusculum, who had succeeded

to the Papacy as a boy of twelve! King Canute and Rudolf of Burgundy

were present at the ceremony, and Konrad betrothed his son Henry to the

Danish princess Gunhilde, daughter of the former.



[Sidenote: 1027. KONRAD II.'S VISIT TO ITALY.]



After the coronation, the Emperor paid a rapid visit to Southern Italy,

where the Normans had secured a foothold ten years before, and, by

defending the country against the Greeks and Saracens, were rapidly

making themselves its rulers. He found it easier to accept them as

vassals than to drive them out, but in so doing he added a new and

turbulent element to those which already distracted Italy. However,

there was now external quiet, at least, and he went back to Germany.



Here his step-son, Ernest II. of Suabia, who claimed the crown of

Burgundy, had already risen in rebellion against him. He was not

supported even by his own people, and the Emperor imprisoned him in a

strong fortress until the Empress Gisela, by her prayers, procured his

liberation. Konrad offered to give him back his Dukedom, provided he

would capture and deliver up his intimate friend, Count Werner of

Kyburg, who was supposed to exercise an evil influence over him. Ernest

refused, sought his friend, and the two after living for some time as

outlaws in the Black Forest, at last fell in a conflict with the

Imperial troops. The sympathies of the people were turned to the young

Duke by his hard fate and tragic death, and during the Middle Ages the

narrative poem of "Ernest of Suabia" was sung everywhere throughout

Germany.



Konrad II. next undertook a campaign against Poland, which was wholly

unsuccessful: he was driven back to the Elbe with great losses. Before

he could renew the war, he was called upon to assist Count Albert of

Austria (as the Bavarian "East-Mark" along the Danube must henceforth be

called) in a war against Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary.

The result was a treaty of peace, which left him free to march once more

against Poland and reconquer the provinces which Henry II. had granted

to Boleslaw. The remaining task of his reign, the attachment of Burgundy

to the German Empire, was also accomplished without any great

difficulty. King Rudolf, before his death in 1032, sent his crown and

sceptre to Konrad II., in fulfilment of a promise made when they met at

Rome, six years before. Although Count Odo of Champagne, Rudolf's

nearest relative, disputed the succession, and all southern Burgundy

espoused his cause, he was unable to resist the Emperor. The latter was

crowned King of Burgundy at Payerne, in Switzerland, and two years later

received the homage of nearly all the clergy and nobles of the country

in Lyons.



[Sidenote: 1037.]



At that time Burgundy comprised the whole valley of the Rhone, from its

cradle in the Alps to the Mediterranean, the half of Switzerland, the

cities of Dijon and Besancon and the territory surrounding them. All

this now became, and for some centuries remained, a part of the German

Empire. Its relation to the latter, however, resembled that of the

Lombard Kingdom in Italy: its subjection was acknowledged, it was

obliged to furnish troops in special emergencies, but it preserved its

own institutions and laws, and repelled any closer political union. The

continual intercourse of its people with those of France slowly

obliterated the original differences between them, and increased the

hostility of the Burgundians to the German sway. But the rulers of that

day were not wise enough to see very far in advance, and the sovereignty

of Burgundy was temporarily a gain to the German power.



Early in 1037 Konrad was called again to Italy by complaints of the

despotic rule of the local governors, especially of the Archbishop

Heribert of Milan. This prelate resisted his authority, incited the

people of Milan to support his pretensions, and became, in a short time,

the leader of a serious revolt. The Emperor deposed him, prevailed upon

the Pope, Benedict IX., to place him under the ban of the Church, and

besieged Milan with all his forces; but in vain. The Bishop defied both

Emperor and Pope; the city was too strongly fortified to be taken, and

out of this resistance grew the idea of independence which was

afterwards developed in the Italian Republics, until the latter

weakened, wasted, and finally destroyed the authority of the German (or

"Roman") Emperors in Italy. Konrad was obliged to return home without

having conquered Archbishop Heribert and the Milanese.



In the spring of 1039 he died suddenly at Utrecht, aged sixty, and was

buried in the Cathedral at Speyer, which he had begun to build. He was a

very shrewd and intelligent ruler, who planned better than he was able

to perform. He certainly greatly increased the Imperial power during

his life, by recognizing the hereditary rights of the smaller princes,

and replacing the chief reigning Dukes, whenever circumstances rendered

it possible, by members of his own family. As the selection of the

bishops and archbishops remained in his hands, the clergy were of course

his immediate dependents. It was their interest, as well as that of the

common people among whom knowledge and the arts were beginning to take

root, that peace should be preserved between the different German

States, and this could only be done by making the Emperor's authority

paramount. Nevertheless, Konrad II. was never popular: a historian of

the times says "no one sighed when his sudden death was announced."



[Sidenote: 1039. HENRY III.]



His son, Henry III., already crowned King of Germany as a boy, now

mounted the throne. He was twenty-three years old, distinguished for

bodily as well as mental qualities, and was apparently far more

competent to rule than many of his predecessors had been. Germany was

quiet, and he encountered no opposition. The first five years of his

reign brought him wars with Bohemia and Hungary, but in both, in spite

of some reverses at the beginning, he was successful. Bohemia was

reduced to obedience; a part of the Hungarian territory was annexed to

Austria, and the king, Peter, as well as Duke Casimir of Poland,

acknowledged themselves dependents of the German Empire. The Czar of

Muscovy (as Russia was then called) offered Henry, after the death of

Queen Gunhilde, a princess of his family as a wife; but he declined, and

selected, instead, Agnes of Poitiers, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine.



But, although the condition of Germany, and, indeed, of the greater part

of Europe, was now more settled and peaceful than it had been for a long

time, the consequences of the previous wars and disturbances were very

severely felt. The land had been visited both by pestilence and famine,

and there was much suffering; there was also notorious corruption in the

Church and in civil government; the demoralization of the Popes,

followed by that of the Romans, and then of the Italians, had spread

like an infection over all Christendom. When things seemed to be at

their worst, a change for the better was instituted in a most unexpected

quarter and in a very singular manner.



[Sidenote: 1040.]



In the monastery of Cluny, in Burgundy, the monks, under the leadership

of their Abbot, Odilo, determined to introduce a sterner, a more pious

and Christian spirit into the life of the age. They began to preach what

they called the treuga Dei, the "truce" or "peace of God," according

to which, from every Wednesday evening until the next Monday morning,

all feuds or fights were forbidden throughout the land. Several hundred

monasteries in France and Burgundy joined the "Congregation of Cluny";

the Church accepted the idea of the "peace of God," and the worldly

rulers were called upon to enforce it. Henry III. saw in this new

movement an agent which might be used to his own advantage no less than

for the general good, and he favored it as far as lay in his power. He

summoned a Diet of the German princes, urged the measure upon them in an

eloquent speech, and set the example by proclaiming a full and free

pardon to all who had been his enemies. The change was too sudden to be

acceptable to many of the princes, but they obeyed as far as convenient,

and the German people, almost for the first time in their history,

enjoyed a general peace and security.



The "Congregation of Cluny" preached also against the universal simony,

by which all clerical dignities were bought and sold. Priests, abbots,

bishops, and even in some cases, Popes, were accustomed to buy their

appointment, and the power of the Church was thus often exercised by the

most unworthy hands. Henry III. saw the necessity of a reform; he sought

out the most pious, pure and intelligent priests, and made them abbots

and bishops, refusing all payments or presents. He then undertook to

raise the Papal power out of the deplorable condition into which it had

fallen. There were then three rival Popes in Rome, each of whom

officially excommunicated and cursed the others and their followers.



In the summer of 1046, Henry III. crossed the Alps with a magnificent

retinue. The quarrels between the nobles and the people, in the cities

of Lombardy, were compromised at his approach, and he found order and

submission everywhere. He called a Synod, which was held at Sutri, an

old Etruscan town, 30 miles north of Rome, and there, with the consent

of the Bishops, deposed all three of the Popes, appointing the Bishop of

Bamberg to the vacant office. The latter took the Papal chair under the

name of Clement II., and the very same day crowned Henry III. as Roman

Emperor. To the Roman people this seemed no less a bargain than the

case of Otto III., and they grew more than ever impatient of the rule of

both Emperor and Pope. Their republican instincts, although repressed by

a fierce and powerful nobility, were kept alive by the examples of

Venice and Milan, and they dreamed as ardently of a free Rome in the

twelfth century as in the nineteenth.



[Sidenote: 1046. APPOINTMENT OF POPES.]



Up to this time the Roman clergy and people had taken part, so far as

the mere forms were concerned, in the election of the Popes. They were

now compelled (of course very unwillingly) to give up this ancient

right, and allow the Emperor to choose the candidate, who was then sure

to be elected by Bishops of Imperial appointment. In fact, during the

nine remaining years of Henry III.'s reign, he selected three other

Popes, Clement II. and his first two successors having all died

suddenly, probably from poison, after very short reigns. But this was

the end of absolute German authority and Roman submission: within thirty

years the Christian world beheld a spectacle of a totally opposite

character.



Henry III. visited Southern Italy, confirmed the Normans in their rule,

as his father had done, and then returned to Germany. He had reached the

climax of his power, and the very means he had taken to secure it now

involved him in troubles which gradually weakened his influence in

Germany. He was generous, but improvident and reckless: he bestowed

principalities on personal friends, regardless of hereditary claims or

the wishes of the people, and gave away large sums of money, which were

raised by imposing hard terms upon the tenants of the crown-lands. A new

war with Hungary, and the combined revolt of Godfrey of Lorraine,

Baldwin of Flanders and Dietrich of Holland against him, diminished his

military resources; and even his success, at the end of four weary

years, did not add to his renown. Leo IX., the third Pope of his

appointment, was called upon to assist him by hurling the ban of the

Church against the rebellious princes. He also called to his assistance

Danish and English fleets which assailed Holland and Flanders, while he

subdued Godfrey of Lorraine. The latter soon afterwards married the

widowed Countess Beatrix of Tuscany, and thus became ruler of nearly all

Italy between the Po and the Tiber.



By the year 1051, all the German States except Saxony were governed by

relatives or personal friends of the Emperor. In order to counteract

the power of Bernhard, Duke of the Saxons, of whom he was jealous, he

made another friend, Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, with authority over

priests and churches in Northern Germany, Denmark, Scandinavia and even

Iceland. He also built a stately palace at Goslar, at the foot of the

Hartz Mountains, and made it as often as possible his residence, in

order to watch the Saxons. Both these measures, however, increased his

unpopularity with the German people.



[Sidenote: 1054.]



Leo IX., in 1054, marched against the Normans who were threatening the

southern border of the Roman territory, but was defeated and taken

prisoner. The victors treated him with all possible reverence, and he

soon saw the policy of making friends of such a bold and warlike people.

A treaty of peace was concluded, wherein the Normans acknowledged

themselves dependents of the Papal power: no notice was taken of the

fact that they had already acknowledged that of the German-Roman

Emperors. This event, and the increasing authority of his old enemy,

Godfrey, in Tuscany, led Henry III. to visit Italy again in 1055.

Although he held the Diet of Lombardy and a grand review on the

Roncalian plains near Piacenza, he accomplished nothing by his journey:

he did not even visit Rome. Leo IX. died the same year, and Henry

appointed a new Pope, Victor II., who, like his predecessor, became an

instrument in the hands of Hildebrand of Savona, a monk of Cluny, who

was even then, although few suspected it, the real head and ruler of the

Christian world.



The Emperor discovered that a plot had been formed to assassinate him on

his way to Germany. This danger over, he had an interview with king

Henri of France, which became so violent that he challenged the latter

to single combat. Henri avoided the issue by marching away during the

following night. The Emperor retired to his palace at Goslar, in

October, 1056, where he received a visit from Pope Victor II. He was

broken in health and hopes, and the news of a defeat of his army by the

Slavonians in Prussia is supposed to have hastened his end. He died

during the month, not yet forty years old, leaving a boy of six as his

successor.



[Sidenote: 1062. HENRY IV.]



The child, Henry IV., had already been crowned King of Germany, and his

mother, the Empress Agnes, was chosen regent during his minority. The

Bishop of Augsburg was her adviser, and her first acts were those of

prudence and reconciliation. Peace was concluded with Godfrey of

Lorraine and Baldwin of Flanders, minor troubles in the States were

quieted, and the Empire enjoyed the promise of peace. But the Empress,

who was a woman of a weak, yielding nature, was soon led to make

appointments which created fresh troubles. The reigning princes used the

opportunity to make themselves more independent, and their mutual

jealousy and hostility increased in proportion as they became stronger.

The nobles and people of Rome renewed their attempt to have a share in

the choice of a Pope; and, although the appointment was finally left to

the Empress, the Pope of her selection, Nicholas II., instead of being

subservient to the interests of the German Empire, allied himself with

the Normans and with the republican party in the cities of Lombardy.



At home, the troubles of the Empress Agnes increased year by year. A

conspiracy to murder the young Henry IV. was fortunately discovered;

then a second, at the head of which was the Archbishop Hanno of Cologne,

was formed to take him from his mother's care and give him into stronger

hands. In 1062, when Henry IV. was twelve years old, Hanno visited the

Empress at Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine. After a splendid banquet, he

invited the young king to look at his vessel, which lay near the palace;

but no sooner had the latter stepped upon the deck, than the

conspirators seized their oars and pushed into the stream. Henry boldly

sprang into the water; Count Ekbert of Brunswick sprang after him, and

both, after nearly drowning in their struggle, were taken on board. The

Empress stood on the shore, crying for help, and her people sought to

intercept the vessel, but in vain: the plot was successful. A meeting of

reigning princes, soon afterwards, appointed Archbishop Hanno guardian

of the young king.



He was a hard, stern master, and Henry IV. became his enemy for life.

Within a year, Hanno was obliged to yield his place to Adalbert,

Archbishop of Bremen, who was as much too indulgent as the former had

been too rigid. The jealousy of the other priests and princes was now

turned against Adalbert, and his position became so difficult that in

1065, when Henry IV. was only fifteen years old, he presented him to an

Imperial Diet, held at Worms, and there invested him with the sword,

the token of manhood. Thenceforth Henry reigned in his own name,

although Adalbert's guardianship was not given up until a year later.

Then he was driven away by a union of the other Bishops and the reigning

princes, and his rival, Hanno, was forced, as chief counsellor, upon the

angry and unwilling king.



[Sidenote: 1066.]



The next year Henry was married to the Italian princess, Bertha, to whom

his father had betrothed him as a child. Before three years had elapsed,

he demanded to be divorced from her; but, although the Archbishop of

Mayence and the Imperial Diet were persuaded to consent, the Pope,

Alexander II., following the advice of his Chancellor, Hildebrand of

Savona, refused his sanction. Henry finally decided to take back his

wife, whose beauty, patience and forgiving nature compelled him to love

her at last. About the same time, his father's enemy and his own,

Godfrey of Lorraine and Tuscany, died; another enemy, Otto, Duke of

Bavaria, fell into his hands, and was deposed; and there only remained

Magnus, Duke of the Saxons, who seemed hostile to his authority. The

events of Henry's youth and the character of his education made him

impatient and mistrustful: he inherited the pride and arbitrary will of

his father and grandfather, without their prudence: he surrounded

himself with wild and reckless princes of his own age, whose counsels

too often influenced his policy.



No Frank Emperor could be popular with the fierce, independent Saxons;

but when it was rumored that Henry IV. had sought an alliance with the

Danish king, Swen, against them,--when he called upon them, at the same

time, to march against Poland,--their suspicions were aroused, and the

whole population rose in opposition. To the number of 60,000, headed by

Otto, the deposed Duke of Bavaria (who was a Saxon noble), they marched

to the Harzburg, the Imperial castle near Goslar. Henry rejected their

conditions: the castle was besieged, and he escaped with difficulty,

accompanied only by a few followers. He endeavored to persuade the other

German princes to support him, but they refused. They even entered into

a conspiracy to dethrone him; the Bishops favored the plan, and his

cause seemed nearly hopeless.



In this emergency the cities along the Rhine, which were very weary of

priestly rule, and now saw a chance to strengthen themselves by

assisting the Emperor, openly befriended him. They were able, however,

to give him but little military support, and in February, 1074, he was

compelled to conclude a treaty with the Saxons, which granted them

almost everything they demanded, even to the demolition of the

fortresses he had built on their territory. But, in the flush of

victory, they also tore down the Imperial palace at Goslar, the Church,

and the sepulchre wherein Henry III. was buried. This placed them in the

wrong, and Henry IV. marched into Saxony with an immense army which he

had called together for the purpose of invading Hungary. The Saxons

armed themselves to resist, but they were attacked when unprepared,

defeated after a terrible battle, and their land laid waste with fire

and sword. Thus were again verified, a thousand years later, the words

of Tiberius--that it was not necessary to attempt the conquest of the

Germans, for, if let alone, they would destroy themselves.



[Sidenote: 1074. POPE GREGORY VII.]



The power of Henry IV. seemed now to be assured; but the lowest

humiliation which ever befell a monarch was in store for him. The monk

of Cluny, Hildebrand of Savona, who had inspired the policy of four

Popes during twenty-four years, became Pope himself in 1073, under the

name of Gregory VII. He was a man of iron will and inexhaustible energy,

wise and far-seeing beyond any of his contemporaries, and unquestionably

sincere in his aims. He remodelled the Papal office, gave it a new

character and importance, and left his own indelible mark on the Church

of Rome from that day to this. For the first five hundred years after

Christ the Pope had been merely the Bishop of Rome; for the second five

hundred years he had been the nominal head of the Church, but

subordinate to the political rulers, and dependent upon them. Gregory

VII. determined to make the office a spiritual power, above all other

powers, with sole and final authority over the bishops, priests and

other servants of the Church. It was to be a religious Empire, existing

by Divine right, independent of the fate of nations or the will of

kings.



He relied mainly upon two measures to accomplish this change,--the

suppression of simony and the celibacy of the priesthood. He determined

that the priests should belong wholly to the Church; that the human ties

of wife and children should be denied to them. This measure had been

proposed before, but never carried into effect, on account of the

opposition of the married Bishops and priests; but the increase of the

monastic orders and their greater influence at this time favored

Gregory's design. Even after celibacy was proclaimed as a law of the

Church, in 1074, it encountered the most violent opposition, and the law

was not universally obeyed by the priests until two or three centuries

later.



[Sidenote: 1075.]



In 1075, Gregory promulgated a law against simony, in which he not only

prohibited the sale of all offices of the Church, but claimed that the

Bishops could only receive the ring and crozier, the symbols of their

authority, from the hands of the Pope. The same year, he sent messengers

to Henry IV. calling upon him to enforce this law in Germany, under

penalty of excommunication. The surprise and anger of the King may

easily be imagined: it was a language which no Pope had ever before

dared to use toward the Imperial power. Indeed, when we consider that

Gregory at this time was quarrelling with the Normans, the Lombard

cities and the king of France, and that a party in Rome was becoming

hostile to his rule, the act seems almost that of a madman.



Henry IV. called a Synod, which met at Worms. The Bishops, at his

request, unanimously declared that Gregory VII. was deposed from the

Papacy, and a message was sent to the people at Rome, ordering them to

drive him from the city. But, just at that time, Gregory had put down a

conspiracy of the nobles to assassinate him, by calling the people to

his aid, and he was temporarily popular with the latter. He answered

Henry IV. with the ban of excommunication,--which would have been

harmless enough, but for the deep-seated discontent of the Germans with

the king's rule. The Saxons, whom he had treated with the greatest

harshness and indignity since their subjection, immediately found a

pretext to throw off their allegiance: the other German States showed a

cold and mistrustful temper, and their princes failed to come together

when Henry called a National Diet. In the meantime the ambassadors of

Gregory were busy, and the petty courts were filled with secret

intrigues for dethroning the king and electing a new one.



[Sidenote: 1077. THE HUMILIATION AT CANOSSA.]



In October, 1076, finally, a Convention of princes was held on the

Rhine, near Mayence. Henry was not allowed to be present, but he sent

messengers, offering to yield to their demands if they would only guard

the dignity of the crown. The princes rejected all his offers, and

finally adjourned to meet in Augsburg early in 1077, when the Pope was

asked to be present. As soon as Henry IV. learned that Gregory had

accepted the invitation, he was seized with a panic as unkingly as his

former violence. Accompanied only by a small retinue, he hastened to

Burgundy, crossed Mont Cenis in the dead of winter, encountering many

sufferings and dangers on the way, and entered Italy with the single

intention of meeting Pope Gregory and persuading him to remove the ban

of the Church.



At the news of his arrival in Lombardy, the Bishops and nobles from all

the cities flocked to his support, and demanded only that he should lead

them against the Pope. The movement was so threatening that Gregory

himself, already on his way to Germany, halted, and retired for a time

to the Castle of Canossa (in the Apennines, not far from Parma), which

belonged to his devoted friend, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Victory

was assured to Henry, if he had but grasped it; but he seems to have

possessed no courage except when inspired by hate. He neglected the

offered help, went to Canossa, and, presenting himself before the gate

barefoot and clad only in a shirt of sackcloth, he asked to be admitted

and pardoned as a repentant sinner. Gregory, so unexpectedly triumphant,

prolonged for three whole days the satisfaction which he enjoyed in the

king's humiliation: for three days the latter waited at the gate in snow

and rain, before he was received. Then, after promising to obey the

Pope, he received the kiss of peace, and the two took communion together

in the castle-chapel! This was the first great victory of the Papal

power: Gregory VII. paid dearly for it, but it was an event which could

not be erased from History. It has fed the pride and supported the

claims of the Roman Church, from that day to this.



Gregory had dared to excommunicate Henry, because of the political

conspirators against the latter; but he had not considered that his

pardon would change those conspirators into enemies. The indignant

Lombards turned their backs on Henry, the Bishops rejected the Pope's

offer to release them from the ban, and the strife became more fierce

and relentless than ever. In the meantime the German princes, encouraged

by the Pope, proclaimed Rudolf of Suabia King in Henry's place. The

latter, now at last supported by the Lombards, hastened back to Germany.

A terrible war ensued, which lasted for more than two years, and was

characterized by the most shocking barbarities on both sides. Gregory a

second time excommunicated the king, but without the slightest political

effect. The war terminated in 1080 by the death of Rudolf in battle, and

Henry's authority became gradually established throughout the land.



[Sidenote: 1084.]



His first movement, now, was against the Pope. He crossed the Alps with

a large army, was crowned King of Lombardy, and then marched towards

Rome. Gregory's only friend was the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, who

resisted Henry's advance until the cities of Pisa and Lucca espoused his

cause. Then he laid siege to Rome, and a long war began, during which

the ancient city suffered more than it had endured for centuries. The

end of the struggle was a devastation worse than that inflicted by

Geiserich. When Henry finally gained possession of the city, and the

Pope was besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, the latter released

Robert Guiscard, chief of the Normans in Southern Italy, from the ban of

excommunication which he had pronounced against him, and called him to

his aid. A Norman army, numbering 36,000 men, mostly Saracens,

approached Rome, and Henry was compelled to retreat. The Pope was

released, but his allies burned all the city between the Lateran and the

Coliseum, slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants, carried away

thousands as slaves, and left a desert of blood and ruin behind them.

Gregory VII. did not dare to remain in Rome after their departure: he

accompanied them to Salerno, and there died in exile, in 1085.



Henry IV. immediately appointed a new Pope, Clement III., by whom he was

crowned Emperor in St. Peter's. After Gregory's death, the Normans and

the French selected another Pope, Urban II., and until both died,

fifteen years afterwards, they and their partisans never ceased

fighting. The Emperor Henry, however, who returned to Germany

immediately alter his coronation, took little part in this quarrel. The

last twenty years of his reign were full of trouble and misfortune. His

eldest son, Konrad, who had lived mostly in Lombardy, was in 1092

persuaded to claim the crown of Italy, was acknowledged by the hostile

Pope, and allied himself with his father's enemies. For a time he was

very successful, but the movement gradually failed, and he ended his

days in prison, in 1101.



[Sidenote: 1105. TREACHERY OF HENRY IV.'S SON.]



Henry's hopes were now turned to his younger son, Henry, who was of a

cold, calculating, treacherous disposition. The political and religious

foes of the Emperor were still actively scheming for his overthrow, and

they succeeded in making the young Henry their instrument, as they had

made his brother Konrad. During the long struggles of his reign, the

Emperor's strongest and most faithful supporter had been Frederick of

Hohenstaufen, a Suabian count, to whom he had given his daughter in

marriage, and whom he finally made Duke of Suabia. The latter died in

1104, and most of the German princes, with the young Henry at their

head, arose in rebellion. For nearly a year, the country was again

desolated by a furious civil war; but the cities along the Rhine, which

were rapidly increasing in wealth and population, took the Emperor's

side, as before, and enabled him to keep the field against his son. At

last, in December, 1105, their armies lay face to face, near the river

Moselle, and an interview took place between the two. Father and son

embraced each other; tears were shed, repentance offered and pardon

given; then both set out together for Mayence, where it was agreed that

a National Diet should settle all difficulties.



On the way, however, the treacherous son persuaded his father to rest in

the Castle of Boeckelheim, there instantly shut the gates upon him and

held him prisoner until he compelled him to abdicate. But, after the

act, the Emperor succeeded in making his escape: the people rallied to

his support, and he was still unconquered when death came to end his

many troubles, in Liege, in August, 1106. He was perhaps the most

signally unfortunate of all the German Emperors. The errors of his

education, the follies and passions of his youth, the one fatal weakness

of his manhood, were gradually corrected by experience; but he could not

undo their consequences. After he had become comparatively wise and

energetic, the internal dissensions of Germany, and the conflict between

the Roman Church and the Imperial power, had grown too strong to be

suppressed by his hand. When he might have done right, he lacked either

the knowledge or the will; when he finally tried to do right, he had

lost the power.



[Sidenote: 1099.]



During the latter years of his reign occurred a great historical event,

the consequences of which were most important to Europe, though not

immediately so to Germany. Peter the Hermit preached a Crusade to the

Holy Land for the purpose of conquering Jerusalem from the Saracens.

The "Congregation of Cluny" had prepared the way for this movement: one

of the two Popes, Urban II., encouraged it, and finally Godfrey of

Bouillon (of the Ducal family of Lorraine) put himself at its head. The

soldiers of this, the First Crusade, came chiefly from France, Burgundy

and Italy. Although many of them passed through Germany on their way to

the East, they made few recruits among the people; but the success of

the undertaking, the capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey in 1099, and the

religious enthusiasm which it created, tended greatly to strengthen the

Papal power, and also that faction in the Church which was hostile to

Henry IV.